Tag: classic cartoons

Boomers Fondly Recall Saturday Morning Cartoons

There certainly are many things that help shape and define the early boomer years, and near the top of the list has to be Saturday morning cartoons. The tradition began in the 1950s and continued through the 1990s, when things began to change. That means the ritual was part of not only the Baby Boomer experience, but also Gen-Xers and Millennials. Now, in a case of “Say it ain’t so,” word has come that the last network, CW, has abandoned the practice, and a full schedule of cartoons broadcast on Saturday mornings are a thing of the past. The culprits that did in this decades-long tradition are said to be cable broadcasting, technology and continued fallout from the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) ruling in the 1990s that networks had to broadcast at least three hours of educational TV each week, between the hours of 7 a.m. and 10 a.m.

Yet what a glorious past it was. Parents of boomers didn’t mind their children watching a few hours of cartoons on Saturday mornings at all. In many instances, the TV would serve as the interim babysitter while the parents got a couple of extra hours of sleep. What stands out even more, though, are the quality and memorability of the cartoons themselves.

Ever since the dawn of television, there were people worried about the new medium corrupting America’s moral fiber, and especially our youth. Once regular TV broadcasts came into being after the War, and when the freeze that the FCC imposed on new television licenses was lifted in 1948, this sentiment surfaced even more. There were hearings about violence on TV and the possible effect TV was having on children throughout the early 1950s and ’60s. Nonetheless, after multiple hearings, parental advocacy groups and scientific studies purporting one way or another, Congress only enacted two of the twenty-seven TV content-related bills it put forth during the boomer years. Though violence in cartoons was an issue that was raised over and over, the main discussion on Saturday morning programming centered around advertising to children.

In the early days of Saturday morning cartoons, networks purchased cartoons that were originally made as movie shorts to be shown at theaters between the features. Porky Pig, Daffy Duck, Bugs Bunny, Mickey Mouse, Popeye, Woody Woodpecker and Felix the Cat were among them. It wasn’t until 1953 when a new version of Felix the Cat was created specifically for Saturday morning TV broadcast. For the next four decades, children would be entertained by cartoon content that was created specifically for them, to be broadcast on Saturday mornings.

Mister Boomer’s personal anecdotal survey has suggested that among boomers, watching Saturday morning cartoons was universal. Virtually every boomer he spoke with shared the experience. Most did what Mister Boomer and his siblings did: woke up the same time as they would during the school week, fixed a bowl of cereal and sat to watch cartoons. Most had parents who slept in while they watched cartoons.

Mighty Mouse selling Colgate Toothpaste in the 1950s.

The list of favorite cartoons goes on and on, and speaks to whether you are an early, middle or later-years boomer. Cartoons favorites that have been mentioned to Mister Boomer include: Felix the Cat, Heckle and Jeckle, Mighty Mouse, Superman, Daffy Duck, Top Cat, Underdog, Scooby Doo and a host of others. Mister B remembers watching them all, from the early days of Felix the Cat, Mighty Mouse, Looney Tunes and Popeye through Huckleberry Hound, George of the Jungle, Magilla Gorilla, Top Cat and Schoolhouse Rock.

Mister B loved them all, but his favorite can almost not be counted as a Saturday morning cartoon. Rocky & Bullwinkle aired from 1959 to 1964 in various incarnations (Rocky & His Friends, The Rocky & Bullwinkle Show, The Bullwinkle Show), but only in its last season was it broadcast on Saturday mornings. He couldn’t wait to see Peabody and Sherman and Fractured Fairy Tales. Rocky & Bullwinkle was shown as after-school content aired after American Bandstand at first, then as evening family fare like The Jetsons and The Flintstones. As an adult, Mister B still enjoys the cartoon, and especially appreciates the minimal yet stylized backgrounds along with the witty dialogue.

NBC was the first network to stop broadcasting cartoons on Saturday mornings. ABC and CBS soon followed. Fox joined the group in 2008. In place of cartoons, shows intended to relay a teachable lesson to kids were created. They were cheap to produce and helped fulfill the networks’ requirement of supplying educational content.

Mister Boomer wonders what goes on in households these days on Saturday mornings. Do parents sleep in while their kids stream 30 second videos on their phones, or are they up at the crack of dawn to take them to scheduled classes of dance, karate, soccer and others? It’s probably a little of each, but Mister B can’t help but think today’s kids are missing out on a great pop culture experience. Saturday morning cartoons helped define the Boomer Generation — the first TV Generation — and taught boomers cultural references and social morés, humor, slang and ways to have fun, even it did involve slapping each other repeatedly and hitting your brother over the head with a frying pan.

What memories do you have of Saturday morning cartoons, boomers?

Please note: This edited post was originally published on October 5, 2014.

Boomers Watched (and Re-Watched) “A Charlie Brown Christmas”

On December 9, 1965, CBS aired the animated holiday special, A Charlie Brown Christmas, for the first time. Based on characters from Peanuts, the comic strip by Charles Schultz, which gained in popularity throughout the 1950s and into the ’60s. This popularity prompted Coca-Cola to sponsor an animated feature. It was the first Peanuts animated feature, and its success foretold additional Peanuts animated features in the coming years.

The comic strip’s distribution exposure meant that TV viewers would be aware of the main characters and their personality traits, so no additional introductions would be necessary. Consequently, it was decided that this would be a half-hour special.

In true 1960s fashion, one of the main plots of the animated feature is Charlie Brown’s dissatisfaction with the commercialization of the holidays. However, the feature embraces the religious sentiment of the holiday with Charlie Brown agreeing to direct the school Christmas play. From the start, Charles Schultz intended there to be a focus on the religious origin of the holiday, and that it would have a jazz score. Neither was common on television at the time, and many wondered if it would be accepted because of that.

The music for the feature was a mix of jazz and traditional Christmas music. Vince Guaraldi was chosen to score the special, and he added two new songs to the mix. All the singing was recorded by children and children’s choirs, and the characters were voiced by children actors. The music was as stripped down as the animation, consisting mainly of just acoustic piano, drums and bass, a fairly common set up for jazz bands.

CBS owned the rights to the special from 1965 to 2000, and aired it each holiday season. ABC acquired the rights and ran it from 2001 to 2019. In 2020, Apple acquired exclusive rights for its streaming service, Apple+, choosing to keep the special off broadcast TV entirely for the first time since 1965. After fielding much criticism from nostalgic consumers, Apple agreed to sponsor an airing on PBS. This year, PBS will air the animated half-hour feature on December 19 at 7:30 pm, sponsored by Apple.

Mister Boomer may be an outlier on this one. He was never a fan of schmaltz and sappiness, in any form. This special falls completely in that category for him. Mister B does not recall the first time he saw A Charlie Brown Christmas, but in subsequent years, he avoided it any chance he could. Raised on the superb animation of Disney films and the contemporary modernism of Chuck Jones’ artwork for cartoons like the Road Runner, the animation in this feature left him unimpressed. Even the bare-bones animation of Rocky and Bullwinkle was light years ahead of this one.

Like many boomers, Mister B found his introduction to jazz from TV. He recalls the jazz songs introduced by a lion puppet character on Soupy Sales, and of course, the adoption of Dave Brubeck Quartet’s Take Five for the Today Show’s theme song in the late 1950s. Such sophisticated beats that were being played on TV in that era ran circles around the insipid soundtrack by Vince Guaraldi. One wonders if the producers of A Charlie Brown Christmas couldn’t afford a musician who would add some pizzazz to the project. Can you imagine if Miles Davis or Duke Ellington had been hired for the job?

As Mister Boomer has stated, he acknowledges that this special, and its soundtrack, are much beloved by boomers and beyond. He is just not among them. Somewhere in the early 2000s, a co-worker gave Mister Boomer a CD of the soundtrack, not knowing how he felt on the subject. After warehousing it for a couple of years, Mister B regifted it.

How about you, boomers? Is it thumbs up or thumbs down on A Charlie Brown Christmas? Did you endure the soundtrack, or like it enough to add it to your holiday music collection?